Quotes by Robert M. Pirsig

I've wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didn't see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. Conned, perhaps, into thinking that the real action was metropolitan and all this was just boring hinterland. It was a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth,'' and so it goes away. Puzzling.

"When are we going to get going?" Chris says.
"What's your hurry?" I ask.
"I just want to get going."
"There's nothing up ahead that's any better than it is right here."

"Cultures are not the source of all morals, only a limited set of morals. Cultures can be graded and judged morally according to their contribution to the evolution of life."

"Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not."

Rules of Order state that ...

No minority has a right to block a majority from conducting the legal business
of the organisation .... but

No majority has a right to prevent a minority from peacefully attempting to
become the majority.

We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on "good" rather than "time" and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes.

Now it's become apparent that this [cultural change] isn't a fad that going to go away next year or the year after.  It's here to stay because it's a very serious and important way of looking at things that looks incompatible with reason and order and responsibility but actually is not...  It was an intrusion on his reality.  It just blew a hole right through his whole groovy way of looking at things and he would not face up to it because it seemed to threaten his whole lifestyle.

I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not to talk about relationships of political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programs full of things for other people to do. I think that kind of approach starts it at the end and presumes the end is the beginning. Programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then to work outward from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what i have to say has more lasting value.

I'm not sure of much of anything these days.  Maybe that's why I talk so much.

The truth came knocking at my door, and I said, "Go away! I'm looking for the truth!" And so it did.